The Treasurer must stop playing politics with the NDIS funding arrangements.

On Meet the Press this morning Wayne Swan seemed more concerned with the policies of the Opposition than with explaining his government’s position on the NDIS.

When Wayne Swan was asked how he intended to fund the NDIS, all he could do was talk about the Opposition.

HUGH RIMINTON:

The fact of it is though that until there's a funding model for the $8 billion a year extra that is going to be represented by the NDIS, this is not a policy, surely it is simply an aspiration.

WAYNE SWAN:

I completely reject that. We will make the room in our Budget to fund this scheme for the long term, because this is a priority. But you have got the Opposition, who have got this huge crater in their Budget bottom line already. They are not in a position to tell Australia anything about how they will fund new priorities. (Source: Meet the Press, Channel 10, 5 August 2012)

Except Wayne Swan has told us no detail of how the NDIS will be funded under Labor, nor has he committed to the Productivity Commission’s recommended timetable of a full rollout by 2018-19.

To make matters worse, Wayne Swan tried to tell Australians that the Government had already detailed how they would fund the NDIS.

HUGH RIMINTON:

In fairness, you can't say you have committed to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, if you can't tell us how you’re going to fund it, and right now there's no detail on how it’s going to be funded.

WAYNE SWAN:

Well I’m sorry, there is, Hugh. There's $1 billion on the table at the moment. (Source: Meet the Press, Channel 10, 5 August 2012)

This is a cruel hoax. The only funding Labor has committed to is $1 billion over four years, almost $3 billion less than what the Productivity Commission recommended over the same period.

When the money runs out for trial sites, Labor has no plans for the future of the scheme.

Wayne Swan must come clean with how he intends to fund the $8 billion NDIS, in accordance with the Productivity Commission’s timetable.

Just last week we had Labor Senator Doug Cameron give the game away when he said the Government should hike taxes to pay for schemes such as the NDIS.

In the lead up to the last Budget the Coalition called for the Government to provide funding certainty for the NDIS. They failed to do so.

Labor must immediately detail how they intend to fund the $8 billion NDIS, in full, and explain why they have walked away from the Productivity Commission's plan.